Скачать или смотреть Panic as parents seek baby formula amid shortage

(13 May 2022)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4379509
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cheshire, Connecticut – 12 May 2022
1. Various of Connecticut resident Jennifer Kersey holding her 7-month-old son, Blake Kersey Jr
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jennifer Kersey, mother:
"So usually I usually buy an advance. I usually get four of these big tubs that will last me for the month until we buy more. And I started to see that there was a formula shortage. So I was telling my husband, I said, honey, we got to go and find this formula because this is a crisis. He said everything's going to be all right. You know, all of a sudden we go to buy formula, everything is gone."
3. Kersey scooping powdered formula into a bottle
4. Various mother and baby with bottle
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jennifer Kersey, mother: ++COVERED++
"It's crazy. It was like the toilet paper and the sanitizer when everybody was looking for toilet paper and sanitizer gone off the shelves. I think a lot of people, I don't know 100%, but I believe my own opinion that a lot of people, through the inflation, they say, you know what, I'm going to go out there and buy formula and hoard it in my house or people are purchasing it and selling it for double, triple on eBay."
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jennifer Kersey, mother:
"I think if we don't share, I think we're going to I think it's going to be a problem. As fast as these companies make this formula, we can get them back on the shelf. So I'm just asking everybody, if you have, please give, don't hoarder, let's all work together because these are babies, you know, they got to eat."
7. Close-up of bottle
STORYLINE:
A nationwide baby formula shortage Thursday has forced frenzied parents into online groups to swap and sell to each other to keep their babies fed.
The problem is the result of supply chain disruptions and a safety recall, and has had a cascade of effects: Retailers are limiting what customers can buy, and doctors and health workers are urging parents to contact food banks or physicians' offices, in addition to warning against watering down formula to stretch supplies or using online DIY recipes.
The shortage is weighing particularly on lower-income families after the recall by formula maker Abbott, stemming from contamination concerns.
Jennifer Kersey, 36 of Cheshire, Connecticut, said she was down to her last can of formula for her 7-month-old son, Blake Kersey Jr., before someone saw her post on a Facebook group and came by with a few sample cans.
“At first I was starting to panic,” she said. “But, I’m a believer in the Lord, so I said, ’God, I know you’re going to provide for me' and I just started reaching out to people, ‘Hey do you have this formula?’"
She said she and others in the group are helping each other, finding stores that might have the formula in stock and getting it to mothers who need it.
The recall wiped out many brands covered by WIC, a federal program like food stamps that serves women, infants and children, though the program now permits brand substitutes.
The Biden administration is working with states to make it easier for WIC recipients to buy different sizes of formula that their benefits might not currently cover.
About half of infant formula nationwide is purchased by participants using WIC benefits, according to the White House.
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